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Meet Teacher Needs First (Web only)
When teachers' basic needs are fulfilled, they're more able to meet their students' needs.
By Amanda R. Miles

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*****[SARAH, Lisa's creating a file for the figure. We'll want to anchor it to the third paragraph.]*****
<H1>Meet Teacher Needs First</H1>
<P>By Amanda R. Miles
<P>The pressure to increase student achievement for middle level and high school principals is significant in every state. Principals face such issues as high student mobility, drug use, pregnancy, mental illness, gang involvement, and severe truancy, all in addition to the academic concerns of an increasingly impoverished student body. The question facing principals is urgent: how can we increase student achievement in the face of current challenges? Is response to intervention the answer? More social programs targeted at keeping students off drugs? More reading labs with computer programs for low-performing students? These things may help, but require capital that is all too often simply not there. 
<P>I believe that on a day-to-day basis, the principal must get back to basics. Education in the United States is a multibillion dollar industry with most of the resources devoted to teacher salaries. If teachers are our most valuable resource, then isn't it prudent to devote administrative efforts to cultivating them? Could it be as simple as the old adage, happy teachers equals happy students? 
<P>*****SARAH, ANCHOR THE FIGURE TO THIS PARAGRAPH*****Many school administrators remember clearly what being in the classroom felt like. Others may not remember what is important from a teacher's point of view. Teachers have a hierarchy of professional needsit's much like Maslow's hierarchy of needs for personal motivation. (See figure 1.) Facilities, the master schedule, discipline, and esteem are deficiency needs, which take top priority if they are not satisfied. Teachers will feel valued when these needs are met, and unimportant if they are not. Principals must ensure that these minimum needs are met so that teachers can focus on student learning.
<P><B>Facilities</B>
<P>The classroom is the physical space in which nearly all instruction occurs. Classrooms should be clean, comfortable, and climate controlled. Teachers should have access to sufficient teacher and student supplies and furniture. It is the responsibility of the principal to ensure that each teacher has adequate facilities in which to perform. Asking a teacher to "float," a common practice due to budget constraints, is unacceptable. Administrators should consider this akin to being asked to perform their own daily duties while switching offices every period. 
<P>Teachers expect their facilities needs to be met prior to the first day of school. If this need is not met, the teacher experiences anxiety. Frazier (1993) states that although studies relating facilities to student achievement are few, the existing literature does suggest a relationship: "Foregoing facilities may offset efforts to improve instruction and student achievement."
<P><B>Master Schedule</B>
<P>The master schedule for the school is the next level on the hierarchy. A good, integrated master schedule is rarely the topic of teacher discussion, but its absence becomes apparent immediately. A poor master schedule causes upheaval, schedule changes, and reduced ability to meet student needs. The architect of a good master schedule and aligned curriculum must take into account a variety of complex factors and interactions. 
<P>From the teacher's viewpoint, the schedule must provide adequate time to deliver instruction effectively. AP teachers often need more time than others to address the college-level material. It is also important to teachers to "chunk" like courses together. Asking teachers to teach alternating periods of different classes may be tempting to the administrator who is trying to produce a balanced schedule, but it should be avoided. In my experience as an administrator at the high school level, this results in a high level of dissatisfaction from teachers as they must alternate materials and shift their thought processes from one subject to another more frequently. For science teachers, this situation becomes unusually difficult as lab materials require time for set-up and tear-down. Alternating science classes most often results in a decrease in hands-on lessons. 
<P><B>Discipline</B>
<P>Although not as complicated as aligning curriculum, maintaining discipline in a school building is extremely important to teachers. Schools with weak discipline have unsatisfied teachers. In schools that provide more support from administrators and that have lower levels of student discipline problems, turnover rates are distinctly lower (Ingersoll, 2001). Teachers must feel that administrators support their authority in their classrooms, will deal with problem students effectively and quickly, and will defend them in front of parents and students. Teachers who have good classroom management skills will rarely have to refer students to the discipline office, but when they do, they expect to be supported. 
<P>For administrators dealing with discipline, the problem is often with teachers who have poor classroom management. Teachers who have weak classroom management skills will need support as well, which is often tough to deal with as parents and students may have legitimate complaints. Teacher contracts often make it nearly impossible to remove weak teachers, and the administrator is stuck. If he or she cannot train or fire the weak teacher, the administrator's only choice is to support the teacher when he or she refers students. Undermining the weak teacherletting poor student behaviors slide once the referral reaches the administratorsends a very negative message to the parents and to the student body: the message that teachers are not important and that students do not have to respect them. This is extremely demoralizing to the entire faculty, not just the weak teacher. The administrator in charge of discipline should work to ensure that this is minimized by showing adequate support for teachers and keeping communication open between teachers and the administrators responsible for discipline. 
<P><B>Esteem</B>
<P>Relationships between administrators and teachers obviously affect the climate of the school. Teachers want to work in an environment where they are genuinely respected and treated as professionals. How does a principal ensure that teachers feel, every day, that they are held in high esteem? There are several ways this can be done. The most basic and probably most significant way is for the principal (not designees) to be visible in classrooms. When the principal visits a teacher's classroom, the teacher feels important. Teachers who haven't seen the "other side of the desk" often underestimate the number of issues the principal must deal with daily, from screaming parents to trespassers to school board members. They still expect the principal to be visible regularly and, in my experience, are very unforgiving when this is not the case. Koslo (1989) found that visibility was a factor that teachers stated made their jobs more satisfying. 
<P>Shared decision making at the school is another way to build positive relationships. Teachers are accustomed to being in charge in the classroom, and they want their expertise to be valued by their administrators. Involving teachers in important decisions, such as budgeting, scheduling, and curricular issues, makes them feel that they are held in high esteem. A directive management approach with teachers is often met with resistance and low "buy-in." Ingersoll's (2001) study suggests that 18% of teachers who left the field cited a lack of faculty influence as one of the main reasons. 
<P><B>Conclusion</B>
<P>The teacher's hierarchy of professional needs does not present any information that hasn't already been in educational literature. What it does is suggest that principals who are struggling with student achievement should get back to a more common-sense approach to reaching achievement. It makes sense that teachers who are dissatisfied will not perform optimally, and thus negatively affect student performance. Because teachers are our most valuable resource, it makes sense that we spend the bulk of our time ensuring that teachers are satisfied. Once the deficiency needs of the teachers are met and neutralized, the focus can truly be on student achievement. 
<P><B>References</B>
<P>Frazier, L. M. (1993). <I>Deteriorating School Facilities and Student Learning.</I> Eugene, OR: ERIC Clearinghouse on Educational Management (ERIC Digest No. 82). Retrieved October 22, 2008, from <a href="www.ericdigests.org/1993/school.htm">www.ericdigests.org/1993/school.htm</A>. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED356564)
<P>Ingersoll, R. M. (2001). <I>Teacher Turnover, Teacher Shortages, and the Organization of Schools.</I> Center for the Study of Teaching and Policy (Document R-01-1). Retrieved November 8, 2008, from <a href="http://depts.washington.edu/ctpmail/PDFs/Turnover-Ing-01-2001.pdf">http://depts.washington.edu/ctpmail/PDFs/Turnover-Ing-01-2001.pdf</A>
<P>Koslo, R. D. (1989). <I>The relationship between leadership behaviors of the principal and the morale of the teaching staff.</I> Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania. Retrieved November 11, 2008, from <a href="http://proquest.umi.com/pqdlink?Ver=1&Exp=11-10-2013&FMT=7&DID=746870951&RQT=309&attempt=1">http://proquest.umi.com/pqdlink?Ver=1&Exp=11-10-2013&FMT=7&DID=746870951&RQT=309&attempt=1</A>
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<P><B>Amanda R. Miles</B> <I>(<a href="mailto: amiles4@cfl.rr.com">amiles4@cfl.rr.com</A>) is an administrative dean of William R. Boone High School in Orlando, FL.</I>
